I came across porn at a very young age.
I started watching porn from the very moment I figured out how to physically masturbate at the age of 10.
And I’m sure your story is quite similar.
Discovering porn as a kid is a bit like discovering Bitcoin as a young adult.
It’s this absurd hyper-fantasy that sucks you in and I really don’t need to go into the details. I’m sure you’re more than familiar with what it means to be someone who watches porn on a regular basis.
It sucks.
I’m not exactly sure when I decided that I wanted to give up porn, but I suppose there have been a variety of serious attempts through out my life.
My very first attempt at giving up porn began at age 16, where I thought I’d try to give up porn for the hell of it.
You know, because you’re only ever 16 once, and I wanted to experience what 16 year old me could achieve.
Overall I managed to abstain for approximately 3 weeks, until collapsing into a puddle of sweat and binge-mania.
It then wasn’t until I was around 20 years old that I began to recognise that porn was an actual problem in my life, if not from the simple perspective of being an addict.
A problem which I was determined to understand and overcome.
Age 25. October 20th 2018.
The last time in my entire life that I will have ever masturbated to, or ever watched porn.
A commitment that I have upheld until today, rather effortlessly.
You know when you have that moment when everything clicks, and absolutely everything comes together and makes sense?
I was the guy who had that moment, and I’ve been in control of myself ever since.
If I had to detail all the changes that occurred within that five year period, we’d literally be here all day.
Because, you know.
A lot changes over the five year span of anyone’s life, and the best we can do is look back in retrospect and identify the things that went right.
So up until then, here’s what I was doing right:
- Done the whole Paleo diet thing
- Studied various books and perspective course on mental health
- Took cold showers everyday before bed
- Ate only one meal a day (via intermittent fasting)
- Was doing Leangains and lifting weights three times a week
- Was in an amazing, supportive relationship
- Worked obscenely hard to get a job as a programmer
Truth was, I was doing almost everything right.
Yet none of that actually mattered, because it was those small things that I wasn’t doing, which made the other 90% of my effort null.
Today I want to share with you what those things were, and why they were arguably more important than anything I’d done up until then.
I suppose there were two main things that happened, which helped me better understand exactly what I had to do to address my porn addiction.
And it all happened within the space of a few weeks.
For starters I had a breakdown.
You see, I suffer from a condition from Bipolar Disorder, and it was something I hadn’t told my partner about.
In part, because I just assumed she already knew, but primarily because I’m not the kind of person who will ask for help from others.
However, one day I was feeling particularly vulnerable and I realised one very important thing, which I maintain is important to this day:
It's impossible to do it alone.
The reason why you break down is because for most people, it’s almost impossible to admit that you have a problem, and so mentally you just turn to jelly.
At first, she didn’t take it seriously.
Because I’d never mentioned it once in our 4 year relationship. But when it kicked in that it was actually something I was hiding from her this whole time, it made a lot of sense.
Ultimately, a few things happened as a result.
Now that she was aware of my disorder, I was now able to be honest about all the things I was hiding from her. In particular, my porn addiction which was in part a coping mechanism for my Bipolar.
Which as a result, gave me this surreal confidence to actually address my porn addiction.
For whatever reason, when you get everything off your chest, it just completely changes everything.
You no longer feel guilt for who you are and you no longer see yourself as a monster.
You merely see your actions as a symptom of something greater, which allows you to not take them personally, and not react to them negatively.
In addition, it also meant that I could ask for help and support when required. I could tell her that I was struggling with my porn addiction, and not feel judged or vindicated.
Understanding and recognising my disorder, which I’d previously dismissed, helped me better understand my emotions and therefore, manage them a lot more easily.
I finally felt free to just move on with my life.
And it’s impossible to understate what that feels like.
The second thing which happened, which came about in large part due to my breakdown and coming out about my Bipolar, was equally if not more profound in terms of addressing my porn addiction.
Essentially, I'd discovered this thing called meditation.
The funny thing about meditation is that I’d tried doing it through out various phases of my life to no avail.
Or perhaps all that effort had accumulated up until then, I’m not entirely sure.
Regardless, up until then I’d failed to see the value in the meditation.
However following my break down, I’d decided to take my mental health seriously, and I was determined to do everything in my power to get better.
A friend at work had mentioned the benefits of meditation in his life, as well as a popular guided meditation course which he swore his life by.
So I decided to do this course, which was basically a 10 minute commitment before bed each day, and my gosh.
I can happily say that within two weeks of meditating I'd learnt more about how to manage my porn addiction than in absolutely everything I've done in the past five years to try and curb my addiction.
All because of a simple 10 minute practice before bed.
Absolutely incredible.
The primary reason for this is because meditating allowed me to effectively control and manage my emotions
Primarily, the practice of meditation provided me with the ability to fully control my mind, something which I hadn’t experienced before.
It allowed me to relax my mind at will. To prevent incessant thinking and most importantly, not take my emotions and what I was feeling personally.
If I had one piece of advice to anyone wanting to seriously overcome their porn addiction, it would be to start meditating today.
It is possibly the most essential thing you can do to assist you in overcoming porn addiction.
Of course, what’s also important is how you meditate, and that’s precisely what I cover in NeverFap Deluxe.
For example, a form of meditation I personally find incredibly useful is walking in public, and simply avoiding placing our attention on people walking past us.
The next steps in my journey
Now that I’ve managed to successfully overcome porn addiction, I want to help you do the same.
Often the best way to learn something is to teach others how to do that same thing, and so that’s what I want to do with NeverFap.
To create a vibrant resource for other porn addicts to learn from, so we no longer have to struggle and cause harm in life due to the effects of addiction.
The information is all here.
Get started today.
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